What to do when you don’t have a hat

On Friday I went to a Christmas party. I’m living in the tropics and forgot to bring a hat (well no one told me we’d be sitting in the sun all afternoon!) and this gal isn’t one to let the sun play havoc with that fair, freckly skin! Enter – one nice white towel.

Was I embarrassed? Not one bit. I’ve never been a slave to fashion (as you can clearly see). Did I draw a little too much attention to myself? Probably – but there’s no use hiding from the paparazzi…

On the homefront – the farmhouse is going well. I’ve put the latest picture below (that air-conditioning just keeps getting better)! While I’ve got your attention, I may as well introduce you to some of the beautiful fruit trees on the farm.

MANGO

LYCHEE

FRUIT OF LYCHEE

We have star fruit, lemons and avocados just to name a few. But I’ve left my favorite tree to last. It’s called a Black Sapote and produces fruit that tastes exactly like chocolate pudding.

You are growing it! Mango for sure….lychee oh Yum…and nectarines – those are my favourite three I think. Can you grow papaya too?
The house is a big project, slow and steady is good, looking great so far 🙂

Absolutely love mangoes so would love to have one in my yard, but that Chocolate Pudding tree has a gorgeous shape – I could see me spending a lot of time photographing it – silhouetted by sunrises/sets, peering through winter fogs… And, of course, anything that tastes like chocolate pudding… 😀

Ooh, avocados fresh off the tree would be amazing! And fruit that tastes like chocolate? How do we not have that in the US? I am so jealous! Chocolate flavor without worrying about fat and calories. Wow!

Ha, ha! Love the hat. Oh, that brings back childhood memories at the local pool …
Chocolate pudding sounds great. I’ll have to have a black sapote one day. In the meantime, I’ll be eating nectarines and cherries.

I’m jealous of your fashion-forward head gear!! And, for security purposes, I will be the body that shows up and lives under your avocado tree. Hope you have accessible wireless so I can continue my incessant babbling from under your tree!! 🙂

Heya look good in the hat! And a bottle of wine? No worries! The house is certainly looking better Dianne. I would love to try some of the chocolate pudding, yum!! Tropics aye? It is currently 30F just now. Brrrr!!

How fetching you look! I remember when we used to do that with our towels at school swimming carnivals, long long ago. I’m envious of your mango tree. Although this year mangoes are very reasonable priced so I’m indulging…lots!

We used to do this at the pool when I was a kid as well – I may have lost my touch a little because it was a bit floppy! 😉 I love mangoes – but you’ve got to be careful that they don’t fall on your head while your walking under the tree! 😯

So you’ve thrown in the towel, huh? Loved the hat. Very nice and I’m sure you were the hit of the party. And the chocolate pudding tree sounds divine. I know it will never grow here in Idaho, but I can dream about it….and also a cheesecake tree or something along those lines.

Ok you win. We have no chocolate pudding trees in Texas!! If I were younger, I’d like to see that tree in person. Alas, I am not and will just have to trust your taste buds…:) I love the pictures and your farm is incredible. The house is coming along nicely. It’ll be worth the effort.

Oh … I am guessing you were not embarrassed by your wonderful towel hat because that is your 4th glass of wine? hahaha …I am just kidding *smiles* … I could not help myself. Feel free to whap me with the wet end of the towel. Ow! lol

As for the trees …ohhh…I lovveee lychee….you are sooo lucky you have them there. We have them here too (in the Pacific northwest USA) … it grows only in supermarkets though….ack!

I like the choco tree…omg I would build a tree house and inhale every morning.

By the way, we have a tree here…not sure what it is called…I call it the peanut butter tree…the leaves…you crush it and it smells like peanut butter.

Grins at the wine thing lol.. nevertheless…it is still a fun picture and my favorite.

As for the tree … the peanut butter one…this is what I found on wikipedia…

“Q. What is the tree that blooms in late summer and smells like peanut butter?

It’s Clerodendrum trichotomum, called both harlequin glorybower and the peanut butter tree. The leaves, not flowers, give off the scent when rubbed. The white flowers have interesting reddish bracts followed by metallic-blue fruits. (15 feet)”

I love the Lychee tree, and as for the chocolate tree… I want one, please.!!!… the house is beginning to sure take shape and I see the air conditioning is still in place… “Star Fruit” is another I don’t know, and sounds interesting…
Now for that hat… that’s what I need, then I wouldn’t have to worry about the skin cancer anymore… love the idea that you were not embarrassed, why should you be it looks good… kind of Arabic.

When it comes to keeping the sun off my skin I’m never embarrassed. I’ve had a few skin cancers and they’re not nice at all! I guess coming from a fair (Scottish/Welsh) heritage doesn’t bode well for living in such a sunny country.

Star fruit is also known as Carambola and it tastes a bit like a big grape – very yummy indeed 🙂 The chocolate tree is wonderful (because it’s not man made and not full of fat!) 😀

Oh no! The squirrels would LOVE that fruit! We don’t have squirrels in Australia. But we do have fruit bats and lorikeets – they don’t always eat the sapote because they have the mango and lychee to eat 😦

Dianne,
Your life just gets better and better every post. Fashion mogul, home builder, and now orchard queen. I love mango, papaya, lychee. If you can grow cherimoyas, I’m booking a flight. I’ll be the official hat boy and fruit picker of the farm. You can just pay me in fruit salads and writing tips. Deal?

Strange you mention the cherimoya because there is a tree on the farm (somewhere). I googled it when you mentioned the name. I’ve seen my mother-in-law bringing that fruit into the house and eating it. It tastes like fruit salad (banana?) I must ask her where the tree is because I now know it’s name thanks to you! I’ll get a photo of it if I can find it!

How refreshing to see someone share a picture with a huge towel decorating the head. It actually makes you look a bit like a Bedouin – well, bar the bare arms 🙂 Me, i love papaya, not only does it do wonders for your intestinal system but it’s yummy and a fantastic marinating ingredient – it tenderizes the meat.
I think you should skip the plum – whether it grows there or not. Plum trees are fickle things that drown you in fruit (and wasps) one year, leaving you with less than a dozen the next. At least that’s the way they act up here, in the cold, snowy north.

The towel was an absolute necessity with my skin! I burn very easily 😦

We have a lot of papaya on the farm and I’ve been told the crushed leaves make a tea that has incredible properties including anti-cancer agents – I’m going to dry the leaves and make some 😀 I didn’t know it tenderized meat, but I’ll be tying that as well. I’ve used kiwi fruit to tenderize squid and that works a treat 😉

I had plum trees in my old place and they were very nice (but the trees have huge thorns and they’re very hard to prune).

You’re too darn cute, Dianne! This reminds me of a story. Back in the 1990s I had the opportunity to interview Jayne County. She was famous in NYC for having a band in the 1970s Wayne County and the Electric Chairs, then she got a sex change and Wayne became Jayne. Well, she wrote this book called “Man Enough to Be a Woman” and in the first chapter she talked about how she wore a towel on her head as a kid, pretending to be Cleopatra. I thought that was so funny and your cute photo reminded me of that!

As for fruits, I love lychees — YUM! How about a fig tree? That’s my favorite 🙂

Ah yes I remember the heat in Australia, I was in Victoria, nowhere near the tropics but summer could be a killer. I try to tell the Brits here that i used to cover up as much as possible during the summer and they think I’m nuts. We had an old air conditioner that blew out cold air and we used to put a tray of cold water in front of it to try and make it cooler, until that water heated up and we had to change it. Hope your air conditioning is better than mine. Oddly enough the first air conditioned car I ever owned was here in Scotland, where it’s not needed!

Victoria can get very hot in Summer, Alistair. It’s a dry heat and the wind makes it even worse! I remember putting water in front of coolers when I was younger to cool places down. Thankfully the air-cons they have nowadays are fantastic. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to sleep here without one! 😉

The towel is sooo much better than a real hat; it covers your shoulders – and you are pretty cute in it, too. I am green with envy that you have those wonderful trees! In our town, we mostly have maple, catalpa (with their worms!), and buckeye (whose fruit is poisonous to animals and will make humans sick). Google buckeye candy and see what you get. It’s big here. … And I want a chocolate puddin’ tree!!

I think you look very elegant there in the sun with your glass of wine; the towel in no way detracts, and is very resourceful. I would have done the same thing, not so much out of concern for my skin but rather because unless I have both hat and sunglasses in the summer, too much sun gives me bad headaches.

The headache thing worried me as well, Janna. Drinking wine in the sun bodes very badly for me and my head! Thankfully, I didn’t wake up with a sore head in the morning, but I know a lot of other people did 😯

Thank you for telling me I look elegant – that put a big smile on my face! 😀

Christmas is very hot in Australia. It seems strange that people still cook turkey and eat hot roast meals for Christmas day – I think it’s a carryover from European traditions that needs to change. For the past few years I’ve served cold prawns, lobster and salads for Christmas dinner and no one has complained yet! 🙂

You are a kick! I love the hat. I have been known to sit under a towel when the sun gets too hot…but I need to learn how to make it look like a hat, I just drape the towel over my head and lift my hand to create a sight tunnel.
I also am totally envious of all the fruit trees. We have a loquat (kind of like a plum crossed iwth an apricot) and a santa rosa plum tree. The other fruit trees are babies, but we have a nectarine, apricot and peach. Hopefully those grow grow grow so we can munch on those soon!
Enjoy your summer! 🙂

I had my towel draped like a tunnel at first, but it was too hard to drink my wine, but then I remembered when I was young we used to roll the towel into a hat so it would sit better! It’s amazing how a childhood spent at the local pool could teach you something so marvelous!

Now that just isn’t fair: a chocolate pudding flavoured fruit! I clearly live on the wrong side of the planet, but then again, the days in which I have to worry about remembering my hat to keep my head from burning are few and far between. But worrying about freezing my ears is another thing…

When I was living in a very cold climate I would put one of those small electric oil heaters under the table (the ones that are completely enclosed) and then put a big tablecloth over the table to keep the heat in. It’s amazing how warm you get when your feet are warm – and how many people come to visit and want to sit around the table! 😀

Ingenous solution to lack of sun hat… even with it, sitting in the sun drinking wine for most people would be a disaster – you must be superhuman 🙂 My aunt has a mango tree & an avocado which guarantees us visiting her. Sadly, as a NSW country kid such exotic fruit came tinned only & I would not eat it. I was in my 30’s when I first tasted a lychee, and introduced them to my much younger sisters & brother as eyeballs 😉

You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes! But that towel works for you, haha.
I am soooo incredibly jealous that you have lychee. I absolutely love it. Do you have mangosteens or clementines? I love those. 😀 And I’ve never had Black Sapote before, but now I’m going to make it a point to find it.

Oh, a chocolate pudding tree sounds sooo delicious. Is it fattening? 🙂
I think your hat is quite stylish as well as being sensible. It could definitely catch on. You look slightly Arabic, except they seem to use what look to me like tea towels. 🙂

Oh, I LOVE mangoes and avocados. I’m so jealous of you right now! I’m fair skinned as well, so I’ve been known to cover up with a towel, but it didn’t look nearly as fashionable as yours. I looked more like a terry cloth Cousin Itt (from the Addams Family). Oh well!

Ah! I love the towel/hat. LOL! I think you should sell them on your blog. (I’ll take two!) And a chocolate pudding tree? Will wonders never cease! Who knew such things existed. Your farm looks just wonderful Dianne! Oh what fun you will have! 😀

I’ve had people ask me to bring some black sapote when I visit them for Christmas, but it’s only just finished fruiting so they’ll have to wait until next year (I’ll post some pics of the fuit when it comes on) 😀

How delectable… if only we could smell through this screen, LOL. Ooops, I meant
author: Douglas Adams, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, fame. He always preached bringing along a towel when traveling the Galaxy, because you never know when it’ll come in handy! Have a great holiday!

My favourite fruit is pawpaw (papaya), especially the red ones. With a touch of lime – heaven. The starfruit you grow are sharp tasting, good in drinks…Pineapples – really sweet ones that are ripe, are also great. Too cold where I am to get decent ones though.

I was living in a cold climate up until about a month ago, so the tropical fruit is a real treat for me. A lot of it ends up just lying on the ground rotting which is a shame because it’s so expensive to buy down south!

I don’t have a favorite, I love them all, and I’m growing quite a few now. They are all infants and I will be waiting for a bit, but it is definitely worth the trouble. Your Chocolate Pudding tree sounds very intriguing! We had a white Sapote (aka: custard apple) growing in our back yard in California.